York, PA - Following a conviction, when a criminal defendant finally has a chance to face the victims who were caused pain, the defense attorney typically wants to know beforehand what the defendant is going to say.
"I will tell them to write it out and I'll review it to help them phrase what they want to say," Clasina Mahoney, York County's First Assistant Public Defender, said. "A lot of my clients are not well-spoken. But I don't put words in their mouths."
Defense attorney Suzanne Smith said the opportunity for a convicted defendant to apologize at sentencing often is as traumatic for the defendant as it is for the victims.
"Some clients just can't compose themselves," she said. "But I haven't had anyone who was not cognizant of the victim, who didn't understand the family's loss."
Mahoney and Smith said they have been surprised on occasion when a defendant goes off course during an apology.
On Tuesday, Joanna Seibert, the Dillsburg woman who struck and killed Northern York County Regional Police Officer David Tome in 2008, spoke for the first time to the officer's family at her sentencing hearing.
Her statement, however, focused largely on the hardships the fatal crash caused her in the intervening two years. Chief Deputy Prosecutor Timothy Barker said afterwards, her "I'm sorry" to Tome's widow and family was "a footnote" in the apology.
Seibert, who was sentenced to one day less than a year in county prison for homicide by vehicle, is not the only defendant whose sentencing statement has drawn fire.
In October, Francis Plaza, who was convicted of first-degree murder for fatally shooting his wife, Michelle Plaza, five times in the chest in 2009, complained about his attorney, his jury and the criminal justice system before saying, "I am very sorry for the tragedy that happened to my wife."
Plaza, who was sentenced to life without parole, had admitted he killed his wife, but only during a "black out" she caused when she told him she was leaving him.
William Michael Stankewicz, the man who entered North Hopewell-Winterstown Elementary School in 2001 and attacked the principal, two teachers and 11 children with a machete, said at his sentencing the victims' lost "pint of blood" or "thumb sewn back on" was not as terrible as his own personal problems.
School principal Norina E. Bentzel suffered crippling injuries to both hands when she fought with Stankewicz to protect herself, her staff and the school children.
Instead of apologizing for injuring Bentzel and terrorizing the children, Stankewicz said his Russian mail-order bride, her divorce attorney and immigration services should apologize to his victims.
Stankewicz was sentenced to 132 to 264 years in state prison.
Defense attorney Jeffrey Marshall said he believed most of his clients who choose to address their victims do so out of sincerity, with the added expectation the judge also will recognize their remorse.
"There is hope the family would understand and the court would understand," he said.
Silence before sentencing
Crime victims, or their surviving family members, rarely hear a word of apology from a defendant until it comes to sentencing.
That's typically on the advice of their attorneys, although often under orders from the court.
At sentencing, the courts encourage those injured parties to deliver "victim impact statements," written or oral accounts of how the crime has affected their lives before asking defendants if they have anything to say.
And by that time, a year or so after the crime, many victims and survivors are almost livid. Before the defendant is allowed to address them, victims demand to know why there hasn't been an apology or any show of remorse.
There are defendants, local attorneys say, who want to reach out to the victims and apologize for their actions.
"I will usually tell the victim's family (at sentencing) they've had no contact because I told my clients not to," defense attorney Suzanne Smith said. "I tell them, 'You cannot speak to the victim, apologize to the victim, send a letter, anything.'"
That is, Smith said, because any communication could end up as evidence at trial.
First Assistant Public Defender Clasina Mahoney said she has had clients who have written letters of apology to victims, which she has held back until the case is over before delivering them to victims.
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